Embodiments of the present specification relate generally to radiation detectors, and more particularly to scatter technique approaches for use with radiation detectors.
In an imaging system, such as a computed tomography (CT) imaging system, a fan shaped X-ray beam is emitted towards an object such as a patient or a piece of luggage to image a region of interest in the object. The beam is typically attenuated by the object. Subsequently, the attenuated beam is incident on a CT detector having an array of detector elements. In response to the attenuated beam, the detector elements of the array generate respective electrical signals representative of internal information of the object. These electrical signals are processed by a data processing unit to generate an image representative of the region of interest in the object.
Reconstruction of images from the acquired data is generally based upon the assumption that X-ray photons have traveled in a straight path from the X-ray emission focal spot to the detector element at which the respective photon is detected. However, some number of X-ray photons may be deflected or otherwise travel in a non-linear path (i.e., scattered) before reaching the detector elements on which they generate a signal. Such scattered photons generate an aberrant indication of attenuation at the detector element that may manifest as noise or other image irregularities (i.e., artifacts) in the reconstructed image. Thus, it may be of interest to find approaches for addressing scatter-related signal in an X-ray image acquisition.